Spoilers for The Boroughs (and Season 1 of Stranger Things) are ahead! You can stream both shows with a Netflix subscription.
Before The Boroughs even premiered on Netflix’s 2026 schedule, I thought it had big Stranger Things energy. Of course, I knew the Duffer Brothers were executive producers on it, so that helped forge the parallel alongside both projects being about groups of friends (one of old folks and one of kids) trying to solve a mystery and fight a monster. Now, there are questions about whether the two shows are related. While they aren’t in terms of the stories being literally connected, one of the creators did tell me how their show directly parallels and pays homage to Season 1 of Stranger Things.
When I interviewed The Boroughs co-creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, we spoke a lot about the glitches, what they mean, and what that final glitch at the end of Season 1 could allude to. Or, more accurately, I tried to ask what that last glitch Sam had meant. They wouldn’t answer that question; however, Addiss did tell me that those final seconds where Alfred Molina’s character glitches in the mirror were a direct parallel to Stranger Things’ Season 1 ending:
We know what it means; we’re not going to tell you. That’s the problem, because it’s hopefully setting up a story we get to tell if people like the show and they want to find out what happens next. We will say that that is 100% us tilting our hat and giving a nod to Matt and Ross, and the end of their first season. They laughed when they read it, and they were cool with us doing it, and it was very nice of them, because we knew 100%.
After he told me this, I immediately knew what he was talking about, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t put two and two together.
Of course, at the end of The Boroughs, it seems like the bad guys have been defeated, the monsters and Mother are at peace, and the gang is going back to their normal lives. But then Sam glitches while looking in the bathroom mirror, and new questions arise. Is he OK? Why is he glitching now? Is there a new threat? Is the old threat fully defeated? Hopefully, these are questions that get answered in Season 2.
Meanwhile, in the final seconds of Stranger Things’ first season, Will excuses himself from his family’s dinner. He goes into the bathroom, throws up a slimy thing, and then the bathroom flashes between the right side up and the Upside Down, signifying to the audience that whatever happened to him while he was missing was very much still impacting him. However, he returns to dinner like there’s nothing to worry about.
See, it’s such an obvious parallel between the two shows, as these characters realized something was wrong while looking at themselves in a bathroom mirror. Plus, it’s a super cool way to pay homage to the fact that Stranger Things and The Boroughs do share DNA thanks to the Duffer Brothers and the projects’ similar concepts.
Considering all this, I hope that the parallels continue. That’s because in Season 2 of Stranger Things, the world and the mystery expanded as we learned more about what was haunting Will. I need the world to expand in The Boroughs, and I’m desperate to know why Sam was glitching, so hopefully they get renewed so they can pick up just like the megahit did all those years ago.
